Indonesia: 2,000 foreign companies pay no taxes

Jakarta (VNA) – At least 2,000 foreign enterprises in Indonesia committed tax fraud in the past decade by announcing that they are suffering from losses, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Each foreign company should have paid an average of 75 billion rupiahs (5.66 million USD) in tax every year, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said, adding that the state lost 100 trillion rupiahs (7.5 billion USD) in taxes in the past decade.

Regarding individual tax payers, their tax obedience was also quite low. Only 900,000 out of 5 million tax number holders (NPWP) actually pay taxes, with a total payed of 9 trillion rupiahs (678.8 million USD).

“It is less than one percent of last year’s non-oil and gas tax revenue target of one quadrillion rupiahs (75.42 billion USD)”, the finance minister said.

The Indonesian Government said that the Directorate General of Taxation should coordinate with the Centre for Financial Transaction Report and Analysis (PPATK) to trace the transaction data of tax payers, while integrating IT infrastructure between the two institutions.

The measure is in line with President Joko Widodo’s instruction to increase the tax payment ratio.-VNA